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Lou Brissie was honored by Ware Shoals High School on Veterans Day along with the rest of the community.

Ware Shoals baseball stadium was renamed after the 89-year-old Brisse, who is a Ware Shoals native.

“A veteran is someone who recognized that we all owe duty to our country -- the nation that gave us the lives that we live; and to each other and our fellow Americans,” Tom Martin, an attorney and Ware Shoals native, told the crowd.

Students learned how Brissie, whose baseball stardom began in the very stadium where they sat, graduated in 1941 and received an offer to play in Major League Baseball. However, he postponed a professional career by choosing to further his education. He attended Presbyterian College and decided to enlist in the military. While serving as a paratrooper corporal in Italy, he was seriously wounded by heavy artillery fire.

“The doctors wanted to amputate Lou’s leg, but he persuaded them to send him to an evacuation hospital,” Mark Lowe, board chair of Ware Shoals School District 51, said from the podium. “Mr. Brissie personified heroism in laying his life down for us. It’s nice to see a true hero.”

Brissie was too ill to attend the ceremony. He watched it from a veterans’ hospital in Augusta, which livestreamed the presentation via the Internet.

“Never in my life has anything touched me as much as this," Brissie said. “It means so much to me for them to do this.”

Brissie earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service and set his sights on the pitching mound upon returning home. Speakers described Brissie’s determination to recover, his appreciation for penicillin following numerous operations and his 1947 debut in Major League Baseball. His career with the major leagues lasted until 1953 and included an American League All-Star game.

Brissie went on to become the national director of American League baseball and a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves.

While Brissie was able to pursue his baseball dreams after the war, he never forgot about the fate of others in the military.

“He spent countless hours visiting veterans in the hospital, encouraging recovering soldiers to continue in the fight and never give up,” Lowe said.

Brissie’s wife, Diana, attended the ceremony and accepted a plaque on behalf of her husband. She told WYFF that she hopes the students will be inspired by her husband’s life.

“Whether it’s in sports, medicine or whatever they choose to go into, they can overcome obstacles to whatever they put their mind to,” she said.

The city of Ware Shoals and School District 51 are trying to raise money for a new manual scoreboard at Lou Brissie Field.